Unearthing and re-creating the "company food" of yesteryear! I'll cook it, my husband will eat it, and you'll rest easy in the knowledge that your next backyard party or church potluck will be a success!

Monday, December 23, 2013

We got a little neighborly help today in baking cookies, chiefly Mrs. White's Santy Claus cookies. Which kind of look like aliens now that I closely examine the photo above. Though a treasured part of my childhood, I never actually saw the assembly process, so I had to piece it together with a lot of guesswork and second-hand information.

The recipe, though, is genuine, and written in Mrs. White's own hand. You will also need a Santa-face cookie cutter, available in a thrift shop near you (or on ebay)

Now, then:

Sift together 4 1/2 cups flour which has been sifted and measured, with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

We also made gingerbread men, I'll let you look up your own recipe for that.

I'll warn you that the Santa cookie dough is very dry, almost like a shortbread, so you can't dawdle. Let it chill about 2 hours, then get right to work. The longer it sits in the fridge, the drier it gets, so your last batch is likely to look like terra cotta.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

No time to chat, Dr. Husband and I are running ourselves ragged, between our filming Kitschmas songs and our busy holiday social calendar! We always like to have something simple around the house to either take with us to parties, or to entertain last-minute guests that may drop by. So today we have a couple of kitschy snacky items from Dr. Husband's family, as well as one reader submission.

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Not a lot to say about this, it's pretty dismal, as you'll see in the video. For a more festive and pleasing avocado-based mold, you'd be better off with the Avocado Strawberry Ring, or variation thereof.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Who doesn't love A Christmas Story (I mean, besides Communists, and people offended by shocking Asian stereotypes)? If, like me, you spend Christmas Day having back-to-back showings of the film running in the background while you go about your business, then you'll remember the dinner scene where red cabbage is featured prominently.

For authenticity's sake, I used a wartime recipe for "savory red cabbage", found in the 1944 edition of the Woman's Home Companion Cook Book. The first ingredient is bacon fat, how could it go wrong?

Bacon fat, 3 tablespoons

Onions, medium-sized, sliced, 2

Lemon juice or vinegar, 1/2 cup (I used cider vinegar)

Water or grape juice, 1/2 cup (I used red wine)

Salt, 2 teaspoons

Sugar, 2 tablespoons

Paprika, dash

Red Cabbage, shredded, 4 to 6 cups

Heat fat in a saucepan; add onions and cook about 10 minutes or until soft and lightly browned. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and cook 20 to 25 minutes or until cabbage is tender. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Tempting as it was to go whole hog and make meatloaf meatloaf double beetloaf as well, we served this with pork chops and sweet potato fries. A perfect accompaniment for a mid-winter meal, and Dr. Husband agrees!

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Remind me next year that pledging to post 12 recipes and 12 songs in 12 days can be somewhat all-consuming, especially when one spends half the week living six hours away from Dr. Husband, and has only been in residence in the Historic test kitchen for three days now.Which is to say, I may or may not have just co-opted something we were going to have for dinner anyway into a Kitschmas blog post. I have no idea if coconuts grow on Christmas Island; I indeed have no idea where Christmas Island even is, or in fact if it even exists in reality, or is just an Ella Fitzgerald song. I think I'll go Google it right now.____________________________________________________________________Okay, I'm back. Christmas Island does, indeed, have coconuts, as well as the largest living arthropod in the world, the Coconut Crab. So next year you can look forward to Christmas Island Crab Cakes on the sixth day.

I bake my coconut shrimp (it helps me maintain the illusion that I'm eating healthier) and serve it with a sweet-ish accompaniment, like orange marmalade, cranberry sauce, or maybe even Jezebel sauce if you want a little kick.

1 poundlarge shrimp, peeled and deveined1/3 cupcornstarch1 teaspoonsalt3/4 teaspooncayenne pepper2 cupsflaked sweetened coconut3egg whites, beaten until foamyPreheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly coat a baking sheet with cooking spray. Rinse and dry
shrimp with paper towels. Mix cornstarch, salt, and cayenne pepper in a
shallow bow; pour coconut flakes in a separate shallow bowl. Working
with one shrimp at a time, dredge it in the cornstarch mixture, then dip
it in the egg white, and roll it in the coconut, making sure to coat
the shrimp well. Place on the prepared baking sheet, and repeat with the
remaining shrimp. Bake the
shrimp until they are bright pink on the outside and the meat is no
longer transparent in the center and the coconut is browned, 15 to 20
minutes, flipping the shrimp halfway through.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I suppose the first thing you'll notice in the above photo is that there is only one thing that can accurately be described as a cheese ball - though I followed to the letter the directions in the 1974 Southern Living Party Snacks Cookbook, the "Green Christmas Cheese Ball" essentially turned to sludge. Think it's o easy to spoil my party, Southern Living? WELL THINK AGAIN.

Here are the recipes, as they appear on pages 62 and 63, respectively:

Red Christmas Ball

1/2 pound natural Cheddar cheese, finely shredded

1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

3 tablespoons sherry (I used Lillet Blanc, since it's what I had on hand.)

Combine blue cheese, celery, scallions, sour cream, and blue cheese spread until fluffy; mix on medium speed of electric mixer. Shape into a ball, wrap in heavy-duty aluminum foil, and refrigerate overnight. At serving time, remove foil and reshape into a ball; roll in parsley until completely coated.

As noted above, the green variety never was a ball, and could not be coaxed into being one. Still delicious, though, so I served it as a dip, topping it with a wreath made of parsley and pimientos. Here's what Dr. Husband thinks!

Monday, December 16, 2013

There's a fantastic blog out there called Vintage Recipe Cards, and honestly, if I were lazier I could just pretty much lift all my recipes from there. (I mean, I AM pretty lazy, but.) I saw a picture of this one and just couldn't resist trying it out.

You should be forewarned that there's really very little salad-y about this. It's very sweet, and of course, frozen, so it's better conceived of as dessert, I think. And a little goes a long way - so, much like fruitcake, the leftovers will likely be in my freezer until I move.
Here, Dr. Husband and I try it out while talking about nothing:

Sunday, December 15, 2013

When you're hosting your holiday parties, you'll want to keep everything classy. And nothing speaks class and elegance like cubes of gelatin with booze in them.

Today's recipe comes from the delightful Jelly Shot Test Kitchen, well worth a click for all the recipes. I should also alert you to be on the lookout in the gelatin aisle of your local grocery. Our friends at the Jell-O corporations have finally responded to the demand for alcoholic flavors, and have three new selections intended for the sophisticated set - Margarita, Strawberry Daquiri, and Piña Colada. If you buy a box of each, you get a free mold which makes the cute little pyramids in the photo above. But the fun doesn't end there - right now, if you buy six small or three large boxes of Jell-O, and flavor, you get a mold to make Christmas-y shapes. And if I haven't convinced you by now, trust me that you DO need six boxes of Jell-O in the house at all times.

If using molds, prepare them by spraying lightly with cooking oil spray, or wiping each mold cavity with a little vegetable oil. Next, wipe each mold cavity clean with a paper towels. This will leave the slightest reside which will aid in un-molding the gelatin without affecting the taste or appearance of your jelly shots. (If you are using a loaf pan, no prep is needed.)

Place the mold on a stable, movable flat surface, such as a cookie sheet or cooling rack before filling with the jelly shot mixture.

Pour water in saucepan and sprinkle with gelatin. Allow to soak for a minute or two. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until gelatin is fully dissolved (about 5 minutes). Stir in the sweetened condensed milk. Remove from heat, and add the eggnog and liquor, stirring to fully incorporate.

Pour into pan and refrigerate until fully set, several hours or overnight.

To serve, unmold or cut into squares.

Garnish with nutmeg, if desired.

We had a few technical difficulties with the song for today. There IS a song, just not a Christmas song. Unless you consider Christmas to encompass everything in the world that is delightful, then you're in luck!

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Isn't this adorable? It's from the wonderful 500 Delicious Salad Recipes, published in 1954, a pamphlet-sized cornucopia of wonderful ideas (longtime readers will remember the zero-scream rated Banana-Salmon Salad, from the same book.).

It's a little labor-intensive, mostly because of the paper-thin slicing of the pears, but worth it. Here's the recipe:

If you've spent any time on Pinterest (and you know you have, ladies...I myself have not, as it's a lady thing) you've undoubtedly come across the following picture

which has been sent to me about a billion times, usually with the subject line "Please Dr. Bobb won't you make this".

Well, try as I might've, I could find plenty of examples of the picture, but no recipe attached. My best lead suggested that the recipe could be found in 'White Trash Cooking' by Ernest Matthew Mickler, but tracking down a copy of said book proved futile. So I had to make up the recipe on my own.

I basically just made a standard aspic recipe, using a can of Spaghetti-O's instead of tomato juice. Now, cold Spaghetti-O's right out of the can were a beloved staple of my teenage years, so I assumed the mold would turn out to be something like that, only Jell-O-ier.

Sadly, it was not the case. I thought that the Spaghetti-O's themselves would provide enough flavor to counterbalance the blandness of the plain gelatin. But maybe I should have erred on the side of extravagance and used lemon Jell-O, or put some salt and sugar and vinegar in the mix, or something.

Dr. Husband, it turns out, is not a fan of Spaghetti-Os in any form. So there's that. Not that I blame him, as it really wasn't very good (the mold, that is. But I can highly recommend Vienna sausages doused with spray cheese.) Here's the assembly process. And stay tuned for the song at the end!

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Forgive the delay in getting this up, but I've been so distraught over the events of Thanksgiving - namely, making a recipe of my own creation, which I've made before, and when made before was universally beloved and admired. But this time...well, something went wrong, I don't know exactly what.

First, though, a taste (no pun intended) of something that never goes wrong, Mother's Microwave Liver Pate (no accent on the e, as in my family, pate is pronounced to rhyme with eight.) Here's Dr. Husband and Mother with the instructions:

And here's the reaction of an unsuspecting Thanksgiving dinner guest, tasting what I made using the exact same recipe. He gives it a 3 rating, but I think he was trying to be nice. I mean, if the first bite is awful, it's pretty much a failure, right?

That's all for this time, remember that the 12 days of Kitschmas start on December 13!

Oh but hey!If you're in the Carolina Research Triangle area, come out and hear me sing next weekend with Voices of Chapel Hill!